SPRINGFIELD, Mo.-- A truck driver was sentenced to four and a half years in federal prison on Thursday for a cargo theft scheme.

According to a news release from the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, 49-year-old Michael Lee Sherley of Memphis, Tennessee pleaded guilty in March to stealing a trailer in West Plains.

Sherley worked for Nu World Trucking, LLC, a company owned by his uncle, Earl Nunn. Nunn and Sherley drove semis without trailers, and went through truck stops and gas stations looking for trailers that were unattended. They would steal the trailers, and later sell of fence the items inside.